by Elie Wiesel
“You’re forgetting the reader; you’re talking as if he didn’t exist! He doesn’t know about this game you’re playing. He doesn’t realize it’s nothing but a business deal.”
“So what? Provided it’s a good book, will his pleasure be any the less for it?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“What do you know about it? You don’t read that kind of book.”
“Indeed I don’t. But that’s just it: I want to read what you yourself write. I’d like to read books to which you’re not ashamed to sign your name.”
“What’s more important—the book or the name on it?”
“The book, obviously. But why should I read something the author’s not proud of?”
“But . . . how else would I make a living? Who cares what I have to say? You have to be realistic, Eve. Be sensible. Understand me: Yes, I live in a wonderful country. Yes, I have a passport in my pocket. But in my heart of hearts, I’m still a refugee. And maybe my words are also refugees, and that’s why they hide in other people’s books.” According to an unspoken rule between them, he now stopped to kiss her before resuming. “But I know when I’ve had it, and then I take refuge in another person.”
“In me?”
“Yes, in you.”
“I understand you,” said Eve, biting her lip. “At least I’m trying to. But I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“Serving as your shelter.”
“Even if I need it?”
“I don’t like your needing me as a place to hide. I like to think that we’re free and equal human beings.”
“In principle, you’re right. But we can’t live in principle.”
“Exactly. That’s just what I don’t like.”
“And that’s what you call lying? Like ghostwriting is lying?”
The young woman’s face clouded over. “I know that in the real world you’re right,” she said, her voice tinged with bitterness. “When we don’t have the wherewithal, money becomes an obsession. But I thought you were different.”
There was a sudden distance between them. It was the first rift in their relationship. Eve’s head was still in Gamaliel’s lap, but now she was beginning to weigh on him. In any event, Eve sat up, then moved away, as if she were preparing to leave. To relax the tension between them, Gamaliel asked her to sit down, and then he said, “I’ll read you a page from what I’ve written. All right?”
“A page of your own? That you’d sign your name to?”
“Yes. Would you like that?”
“Of course I’d like it!”
He stood and went to riffle through the papers on his desk. He remained standing. “Here is the first page I came upon.”
It was a page from the novel—so coveted by Georges Lebrun—that he had been writing over the years:
“The character who is speaking is close to me. His name is Pedro or Michael, Gregor or Paritus. He’s a doctor and a philosopher. He meets a young dreamer, the ‘Blessed Madman,’ soon after his attempt at mysticism had resulted in disaster. The young man wants to die, and the doctor is trying to give him the confidence to go on living. Listen to what he tells him:
“ ‘ “I know what you’re experiencing. You’re to blame because you’re alive. Therefore you stand convicted. But didn’t you set your sights too high? A little humility, my dear revolutionary mystic. It’s necessary. Think of Moses, the humblest of men. Did he consider himself guilty because he had gone away at the very time his brother and his people were making the Golden Calf? You tried to overthrow the existing order of things, and you were defeated. Henceforth, try to live far from the world and its deceiving lights, far from the sight of God, in the privacy of your thoughts. I’m so advising you in order that one day you may be able to start over.” ’ ”
Gamaliel looked for another page, then said to Eve, “Listen to my doctor. He’s with a sick child in Budapest, in a Jewish hospital that the Germans have taken over. He feels overwhelmed, on the one hand by exhaustion, on the other by the need to keep fighting off the death that is hovering over the child’s bed. He is thinking:
“ ‘What is to be done when the human condition is as evident in the remedy as it is in the ills that afflict us? Man’s destiny is tragic not only because it can only end in death but also because all he does seems like a negation of the time on earth for which he is responsible. There would be no problem if it were only a matter of the body, or if it were only the soul. But man is both body and soul, body versus soul, soul the enemy of the body. So in his life—this life he was given, though he never asked for it—the two are always in contradiction. The body clings to the passing moment; the soul refuses to linger there. The soul seeks eternity, but the body cannot attain it. One can imagine a soul confined by the body; one can also imagine a body tortured by conscience. But no torture inflicted on the body will make the soul any wiser. Body and soul: Which gives the other its meaning? That’s the quintessential question, the question within which all others are contained. Nostalgia is the soul’s lament for a past denied it by the laws of the body. But in fact, the soul also needs the body: If memory does not give us back the pleasure we once enjoyed, but only saddens us, it is because to relive the past is once more to go on living by the rules of a frail body and of an impossible love.
“ ‘So the soul is forever feeling bullied, dissatisfied, unhappy. Its hunger for eternity could be appeased if it could escape from time. But all it seeks, all it is able to seek, is an infinite prolonging of the body’s fleeting moment. So, confined to that moment, the soul is imprisoned by its own chains. Here is what man is as seen by a dreamer or a visionary mystic: a stranger in a hostile land who encounters another stranger without realizing that it is God. And God says to him, “Since we are alone here, let’s walk together, so we may arrive at some destination. And even if we do not, each of us will have helped the other not to despair.” So, my child, try to resign yourself to this: If God accepts reality, you must do the same.’ ”
Eve sat still, listening, a frown on her face. “More,” she said softly. “Please go on. Was the sick child able to say anything?”
“No, he was too sick to do anything but listen. But the reply came from a fearless old man, who, from a distance, reprimanded the doctor: ‘You picked a poor time to philosophize. Don’t you see that the child is suffering? While you’re making speeches? You should be telling him a story!’ ”
“I’d like to be in that child’s place,” Eve observed. “Go on.”
The seriousness in her voice gave Gamaliel pause. “Very well,” he said. He leafed through the manuscript, first forward, then back, till he found the passage he wanted. “This is another passage from the same manuscript, my Book of Secrets.
“ ‘The door opened as if of its own accord. Big
Mendel stood in the doorway, laughing. Crossing and uncrossing his arms, he kept on laughing. Shoulders, chest, face, and voice—his whole body was shaking to the point that his young Master no longer recognized him. “What’s happened to you, Mendel?” he asked. “Come in and tell me about it.”
“ ‘They had been apart since the previous evening. A surly priest had appeared in their room at nightfall and gestured to the Jew to follow him. Hananèl had stepped between them, but the priest had pushed him back so hard that Mendel said angrily, “Don’t lay hands on him, understand?” The priest said nothing, and Mendel added, “I’ll go with you, but don’t touch him, or you’ll have me to deal with.” And to the young Master, he said, “No doubt they need a hand with the horses. Let the Rebbe not worry. I know how to take care of myself.”
“ ‘Hours of anxiety had followed. Where could Mendel be? Hananèl tried to open the door, but it was locked. Heart heavy, lost in his thoughts, he paced around his prison, bumping into the walls, afraid to sit in either of the room’s two chairs. So distraught was he that he almost forgot the evening prayer of Maariv; it was almost midnight when he recited it. He knocked on the door; no one answered. He knocked harder a
nd harder, but in vain. He tried to calm himself so that his spirit could ask the Almighty about his beadle’s disappearance. Was he still alive? As usual, the familiar celestial voice replied, “Yes, Reb Mendel is alive. But . . . do not hasten to rejoice over it.” Hananèl quickly asked, “Is he in pain?” “No,” the voice answered, “he is not in pain. But that is not a reason to be reassured.” Hananèl awoke with a start, and, as if in a trance, he began to recite, in the order set out by a twelfth-century Kabbalist, the Psalms of David, which rescue man from distress.
“ ‘ “Come in, Mendel,” Hananèl said again.
“ ‘The beadle could hardly lift his aching limbs. He moved slowly forward, slipping on the wooden floor. Hananèl went to help him, and when he saw close up the ravaged face and bloodshot eyes, he cried out, “What did they do to you?” He led Mendel to a chair and helped him sit. Still laughing, Mendel began to speak.
“ ‘ “May the Rebbe forgive me; I can’t help it. There were three of them, three priests. Two young ones, and the old one who came for me. They wanted me to tell lies about the Rebbe. According to them, the Rebbe was a liar and his powers were a sham. I shouted at them that they didn’t know, they couldn’t know what they were talking about. That their ignorance proved they were serving the Devil. Then the old one pulled an ancient book from his pocket and showed it to me. ‘It’s a manual,’ he said, ‘a manual that dates from the Inquisition. It proved its value in Spain and Portugal. Thanks to it, you will answer all our questions. Who is this young “Blessed Madman”? From where does he derive his occult powers? Is he a sorcerer, a magician? Is he in league with Satan?’ Then I started laughing to overcome my fear. ‘I’m not afraid of pain,’ I told them. ‘I only fear the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But you, you do not fear Him, and that will cost you dearly, I’m telling you.’ May the Rebbe forgive me, but I cannot describe what I underwent at their hands. But one thing is certain, and that is that I never stopped laughing. Because I knew whom I was suffering for. It was for God and His servant, my Master. But they, my torturers, did they know why they were making me suffer? I told myself that in this life sometimes we have to choose between laughing and making others laugh. Well, I made my choice.”
“ ‘Now Hananèl kissed him on the forehead and said in a soft and gentle voice, “We’ve known each other a long time, Mendel. You’re closer than close to me. You’re part of my very being. But you came to me after the ordeals I underwent, after my defeat. Now for the first time you’re experiencing real pain. Know that it is as powerful as pleasure, if not more so. Woe to the man for whom it is the only reason for living, all he cares about; nothing on earth will tear him away from it. In time, it will take him over body and soul. It becomes a deity to him, devouring all conscience and all hope. But you, you defeated that deity by rising above it.”
“ ‘ “May the Rebbe forgive me,” Mendel said, “but he knows perfectly well that I’m only a beadle; my mind isn’t capable of rising to such heights, so I don’t understand the Rebbe’s thoughts.”
“ ‘Moved to tears, the young Master managed a smile. “Mendel, my dear Mendel. Right now, between the two of us, you’re the Rebbe.”
“ ‘The beadle’s face grew somber. “No, Rebbe, a thousand times no! Is the Rebbe saying that because I didn’t reveal any of his truth? But I don’t understand the truth he knows. I’m just a poor servant who lives in his Master’s shadow!”
“ ‘ “I’m saying it, Mendel, because you discovered the truth not of pain but of laughter.”
“ ‘Only then did the beadle grow calm.’ ”
Gamaliel stopped. Perhaps he expected Eve to ask him to continue, but she remained silent. Her eyes were half-closed, as if dozing, but she was breathing heavily, as though her heart were beating fast.
“Words,” Gamaliel said. “They’re just words.”
“What do they mean to you?”
“I don’t know. But I do know what I would like them to be. I would like them to be like fire, to leave scars on the memory of God, or at least of His creatures.”
“Those words,” she said very softly, “would you rent them to me?”
“It all depends.”
“On what?”
“On how much you’re willing to pay. Let me tell you that Georges Lebrun, that novelist of mine, who’s as arrogant as he is untalented, wants to buy them from me. And he’s offering me the moon.”
“I’ll pay better.”
“Really?”
“Come here and sit.”
From then on, they never quarreled. Even when Samaël’s diabolical influence forced them to part, their separation was not preceded by any misunderstanding.
LIKE IT OR NOT, GAMALIEL LIVED HIS WORK night and day. He had always been fascinated by words, by the silence within a word, to which that word gives meaning. Sometimes, even when he was writing his Book of Secrets, he would spend hours leafing through dictionaries, for no reason other than sheer pleasure. Had he to spend ten years on the proverbial desert island with a single book, that book would be a dictionary. He was convinced that to read two words, two little words, was as serious an action as the joining of two people. For the distance that separates one word from another is, in the world of words, as great a distance from earth to a star.
What’s more, each word has its own destiny. Words are born by chance, grow up, and die, drained of their blood, then can be reborn a century later, in some other place, for better or for worse, offering hope to some and sorrow to others.
A word may change in meaning and scope according to its context. The words kadesha, kedosha, and kedusha, in the Bible, are one example among many. Those same words can mean “whore,” “saint,” and “sanctity.” Sometimes we use the same words to glorify what is pure and to denounce what is not. Today more than ever, words transmit violence by describing it. It is when he masters the word that Satan becomes all-powerful.
Rebbe Zusya often spoke of Galut hadibur, the exile of the word. “When words lose their way, when they wander off and lose their meaning, when they become lies,” he would say, “those who speak or write them are the most uprooted of people. And surely the most to be pitied.”
WAS EVE HERSELF AMONG THE UPROOTED? NO. Despite the loss of her husband and daughter, she had kept her nature intact. Eve was upright, opposed to compromise. Eve the unyielding: She had adopted as basic unspoken principles her moral values, the rules of living in a society, of responsibility to others. No one could get her to come down from that lofty perch. She was often right, and Gamaliel conceded that her demands, never petty or malicious, did her credit—even when they entailed a sacrifice.
One day, a public official offered Gamaliel a particularly lucrative contract to write his political-philosophical autobiography. Gamaliel accepted, for the project presented no major problems. Interesting topic, unusual protagonist: poor as a child, brilliant law student, promising start as aide to the mayor of a medium-size city, career without blemish. Gamaliel could deliver the manuscript in a few weeks and be paid the rest of the advance. That was when Eve asked him, “Are you sure, absolutely sure, that this man has a clean record?”
“ ‘Absolutely sure’? No, I’m not. I can’t guarantee you that he never got his hands dirty one way or another. We mustn’t forget he’s a politician.”
“And what will you do if, after this flattering book he expects from you is published, you discover some unpleasant facts about him? Will you feel morally obliged to make a public apology? If so, you won’t be able to, because you’ve promised never to reveal that you wrote his book!”
Gamaliel tried to parry the thrust. “Intellectual honesty and moral courage aren’t necessarily the same. Did you know that the great Descartes was so frightened when he learned that Galileo had been found guilty that he postponed the publication of his own treatise Traîté du Monde?”
“You’re not Descartes. And since you know his story, you can’t use his excuse.”
“All right, I’ll try to expla
in it another way. Suppose I’m a shoemaker. I make a pair of shoes for a good customer. Is it my fault if he sells them to a criminal, who then wears them to rob a bank?” Seeing the look of distrust on Eve’s face, he caught himself and said sheepishly, “Forgive me. That example was unworthy of you, and of us.”
And he gave back the politician’s twenty thousand dollars.
There was another occasion on which Gamaliel refused a tempting offer. A rabbi, “spiritual leader” of a congregation in Detroit, asked him to write for him a refutation of the work of a certain “Rabbi Arthur.” The latter had written what he considered an exposé on a Jewish Communist sect in the Ukraine. Gamaliel asked for time to think it over. “On the one hand,” he said to Eve, “why should I get mixed up in the quarrel between two rabbis? On the other hand, it would pay the rent for six months.”
He went out to Rabbi Arthur’s town in Michigan. A quick investigation showed him that the rabbi was anything but popular. Some resented his arrogance; others mocked his ambition. But how much faith should be put in these nasty rumors? That he had been forced out of his post didn’t mean all that much. It happened everywhere; one could hardly find a religious community that was free of dissension. The illustrious Rabbi Israel Salanter used to say, “A rabbi without adversaries doesn’t deserve his position. But he deserves it even less if he lets them dominate him.” To get a better sense of the man before coming to a decision, Gamaliel attended a public meeting where Rabbi Arthur was to speak.
The speaker was impressive only in his mediocrity. Average height, flushed face of a delayed adolescent, slack-jawed, silver-rimmed glasses over pale eyes. A tense, screechy voice, jerky movements—a comedian. That, at any rate, was what people called him: “the comedians’ rabbi,” or “the rabbi’s comedian.” Vain, self-centered, he may well have had his talents, but ideas were not among them: In that field, his speciality was borrowing. He had stayed single because, people said, he could find no woman worthy of him; he was, in a sense, married—to himself. His speech was a series of banalities laced with an underling’s sense of resentment. He resented everyone—above all, his colleagues, who would not recognize his worth, his distinction, his supposed role in both Jewish and non-Jewish highbrow circles. He resented the community whose intellectual leader he aspired to be. The audience, used to his self-importance, listened with half an ear.